Life Swap
by HedgieX
Summary: What if, on an evening out, Janet and Rachel decided to swap roles? Janet is delighted to be given the opportunity to let her hair down whilst Rachel acts the grown up for a change. By the time they finally arrive home at two in the morning, they've – in their usual haphazard way – learnt a lot about each other, and more importantly about themselves.
1. Chapter 1

"Rachel Bailey," Janet said, taking a gulp of her wine and looking over the rim of her glass at her colleague, "Sometimes I wish I was you."

Rachel leant back in her chair and waited for Janet to elaborate. After a particularly hard day in the office (the fridge had broken over the weekend, and Rachel had spent the first few hours of her shift cleaning out her now-inedible yogurts) they'd come to the pub to unwind.

Rachel didn't see Janet tipsy very often; she was always the steady, reliable one, who'd have a couple of glasses and then switch to orange juice, but tonight she'd already moved onto a second bottle of wine. She'd seemed on edge all day today, and Rachel had caught her arguing with Godzilla in the loos at lunch, although of course she'd denied it later. Hey, why not let her let her hair down for a change, if she needed to forget the shit in her life?

"Because you're so–" Janet paused, tapped her nails on the dirty table top as though she was trying to calculate something, "You're so pretty and funny and carefree, aren't you, Rachel Bailey?"

"Oh, that's me, Janet Scott of Scotland Yard."

Janet laughed like it was the first time she'd heard that joke. "Sometimes I just wish I could be you."

Her lips slipped down from a grin into a contemplative grimace. Rachel was suddenly frightened that her friend was going to cry, so she topped up her empty glass and pushed the bowl of peanuts towards her. "Why don't you be me? Why don't we swap who we are, just for tonight?"

"Like Wife Swap."

_Jesus Christ, Janet was a lightweight, she'd only had a few glasses and she was already away with the fairies._ "A bit like that. Let's call it Life Swap."

"Let's do it, then. I'm Rachel, you're Janet."

Rachel laughed, wondering what the hell she'd let herself in for. She went to the bar and bought an orange juice, and when she returned to the table Janet was drinking wine from the bottle.

"I _never_ do that."

"You do," Janet gargled, a trickle of wine escaping and dribbling down her chin, "You have done, several times."

Rachel forced herself not to argue indignantly. _Janet never argues. I must maintain this 'higher moral ground' she's forever on about._ "Come on, then, Mrs, what happened today to make you such a grumpy sod?"

"I am not a grumpy sod," Janet said, polishing off the remains of the wine and smearing the drops on her lips across her cheek with the back of her hand, "But sometimes Gill – I should say Godzilla, if I'm being you – is so bloody unreasonable. And then there's Taisie and Elise, always wanting this or that, and mise-bloody-rable Adrian, and don't even get me started on my bloody mother."

"Dorothy's lovely, really."

Janet's eyebrows flew up her face and sought refuge under her fringe. She rummaged in her handbag for her purse and wrinkled her nose upon seeing the contents, then held out her hand palm-up and fluttered her eyelids at Rachel. "Aw, please, Rach."

"I am not this bad," Rachel objected, "There's no way I'm this much of an embarrassment."

"I end up buying your drinks every time. You owe me. Ple-ease."

Rachel sighed and gave Janet a ten pound note; her friend immediately scampered away to the bar and began a debate with someone or other about which wine was the nicest. Rachel drank some of her orange juice. It was full of lumps which stuck in her throat like she was swallowing chunks of pineapple skin; she missed the burn of the alcohol, the way it warmed her.

She didn't miss the disorientation, though, or the queasiness. She was sure, in the morning, she wouldn't miss the hangover. She looked about her with interest at the men playing darts, the couples on first dates who seemed to be struggling to find something to talk about, the woman sitting alone in the far corner stuffing potato wedges into her mouth contentedly. She never normally got to people-watch in the pub; it was difficult when the room was spinning.

Janet came springing back and proudly dumped a fistful of copper coins in front of Rachel, "There you go."

"There's– there's about twenty pence here."

"Sorry, they only had pennies."

"You've spent nine pound eighty on a bottle of wine?"

Janet shrugged, already unscrewing the top of the bottle and pouring herself a new glass, "I bought some more peanuts too."

"Don't you think you've had just about enough now? What are the girls going to say if you roll home pissed?"

"I'm Rachel Bailey," Janet cackled, downing half of the glass in one gulp and taking a few peanuts, "I've_ never_ had enough."

Over the course of next few glasses of wine, Janet told Rachel more about her life than she'd told her in years (perhaps because Janet couldn't always get many words in edgeways with Rachel's constant blabbering about Nick or Sean or whoever). She told her about how much she loved her daughters and how frightened she was, constantly, that something might happen to them. She talked about still loving Ade, "despite how much of an arse he is".

Rachel found she didn't mind listening to Janet; she felt like a real friend, like she was repaying Janet for all the times she'd looked after her before now. "What've you fallen out with Godzilla about, then?"

"You," she said, "The real you, not the me you."

"What've I done?"

"Godzilla wasn't impressed about the fridge business, it was all _oh, how immature is Rachel_ and _oh, why can't she just do her job properly like the rest of us, working our arses off_, and all this."

Rachel smirked and drained her orange juice, "So?"

"So I told her you did work your arse off, and you were far cleverer than either of us ever would be, when you got your brain in gear. And she took it a little bit the wrong way. She's a good copper, but she really thinks she owns the place, doesn't she? I'm not her slave."

"Good on you, pal."

"Pal," Janet repeated. She burped; it smelled like a mixture of wine and salt. "That's a Rachel Bailey word, 'pal'. I like it."

And then, out of the blue, Janet began to cry. Great, undignified sobs which made her eyes glisten highlighter blue and her lips tremble. She reached for the wine glass but Rachel pushed it out of her way, and she didn't complain; she took the napkin Rachel offered to her and wiped her eyes roughly with it.

"Oh, Jan, what's up?"

"Just pissed," Janet said, her sobs and laughter combining into a slightly ghastly sound. She allowed Rachel to hug her, something that very rarely happened; they didn't really show affection, they already knew how much they meant to each other, but Rachel knew how much a hug would mean to Janet tonight.

"Thanks, pal," Janet whispered eventually.

The strip of lights above them faded and the barman approached them cautiously, "You're going to have to leave, ladies, we've got a private party booked in here at ten."

"I don't want to go home, Rach."

Janet looked so miserable that Rachel, even tough-skinned cow as she was, suddenly felt desperately sorry for her and only wanted her to smile again. Jesus, was this how Janet felt all the time, like she needed to look after everyone? Rachel reached out and took her friend's hand.

"It's alright. We'll go somewhere else."

XxXxX

**Janet's 'just pissed' is sort of a tribute to Jill's 'soz pised', which will never, ever stop being funny. Reviews would be lovely if anyone has a moment, I'll probably write another chapter or two at some point x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for the reviews, you lovely people. I hope you enjoy this chapter x**

Rachel realised, once she'd settled Janet into the taxi beside her ("fasten your seatbelt, that's a good girl"; the driver had glared at them in the rear-view mirror as though he thought he was transporting lunatics), that she knew very few places in Manchester to go which didn't involve drinking. She hadn't wanted to take Janet to another pub, but she didn't have any other ideas, so she leant forwards and asked the driver to take them to _The Hare_.

A smaller pub on the outskirts of town. She'd been a couple of times when she'd wanted somewhere more classy – yes, even Rachel Bailey sometimes craved some class – and they did a bloody good glass of red wine with complimentary peanuts. She bought them each an apple juice.

"Tastes of piss," Janet muttered.

"You're really getting into the swing of being me now, aren't you?"

Janet's face crumbled again. Rachel shoved the peanuts towards her quickly, then realised this wasn't very Janet-y, and took her friend's hand instead.

"What's wrong, Jan?"

"Everything."

"The fight with Godzilla?"

"Mmhm," Janet wiped her eyes with salty fingers and left fragments of crystals on her cheeks, "Before the– before the fridge thing. I made a mistake, with one of the files, I put it in the right place– no, I put it in the wrong place, I mean, and she couldn't find it. I found it, but she was all pissy with me."

"_All pissy?_"

"She was like 'oh, just because we're friends you don't have carte blanche' and I told her I was a good copper and it didn't have anything to do with her being my friend, and I told her it wasn't fair that she was suggesting I was only on MIT because she was my friend."

"I'm sure she didn't really mean that."

"No, but it hurt, Rach." She sniffled like a little girl. Her eyes were rolling slightly. She kept pausing and glancing up at the ceiling, like she was trying to remember where she was. "It hurt that she said it. And then she started bitching about you."

_What have I done?_ Rachel felt terrible for having allowed her friend to do this to herself. She'd taken advantage of Janet's emotion because she wanted something to laugh about; this Life Swap thing wouldn't be a joke tomorrow. Rachel had checked that Taisie and Elise were staying with Dorothy first, but still, why had she let Janet do this, when she knew it'd end in Janet suffering with a monster hangover, and arguing more with Gill?

"My phone," Janet said. Her fingers were shaking; it took her about five minutes to find her phone. "It's from Taisie. She says they're watching Miss Marple and eating Malseters. I mean Malse– no, it's–"

"Maltesers."

"They don't need me any more."

"Of course they do," Rachel exclaimed. Whatever she'd expected – something about Ade gallivanting and leaving her to do everything for the girls rather than helping out – it wasn't this. "Don't be silly."

"No, they don't need me. They're growing up, and I thought they'd always want their mum, but now they want to stay with their friends and they don't tell me anything. And I'm going to lose them."

More juice had splashed onto the table than gone down Janet's throat. Janet kept trying to drink from the glass, although it was obviously empty.

"You're not, Jan. They'll always need you. They just need space as well."

Rachel was about to suggest going home (she was tired; it was probably the lack of alcohol) but Janet, as though the wine had given her mind-reading skills, clung to Rachel's sleeve.

"Please, I don't want to go home. I don't want to be on my own tonight. I'm on my own every night now, and I'm sick of it. Please."

She wondered what Gill would think if she walked in now and found them like this. Of course Janet's change was the most evident; she was leaning in the apple juice, babbling as tears streamed down her cheeks. But if Gill sat down she'd see that Rachel was entirely sober and concerned for her friend, and in a way that was just as strange. Rachel didn't like feeling as though she was acting out of character; it felt like she'd lost control when she'd agreed to let Janet do the drinking and the swearing tonight, in her place.

Janet leapt up and stumbled for the bathrooms, head butting the door on her way in. Rachel collected Janet's abandoned phone from the table (it may have been a classier pub, but that didn't mean things didn't 'go missing') and followed her; she found Janet splayed out on the floor, leaning into the toilet basin. Rachel gathered up her friend's hair from her shoulders and tried to stop herself from gagging as she listened to Janet bring up her stomach's contents.

"I'm sorry, Janet. I didn't mean for this to–"

Janet wiped her mouth with her sleeve and stained it a sort of purple-grey. "I'm not Janet, I'm Rachel."

"No, you're not. That was all a joke, and it's not a joke any more. I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have– look, we should really go home. I'll stay with you; we'll put on a movie or something. Come on, let me help you up."

Rachel wrapped her arms around Janet's waist and dragged her up onto her feet (Janet was quite slim, but almost impossible to lift when she was semi-conscious, her limbs flailing in all directions). Only then did she realise that Janet's ankle was bent sideways; she stumbled into the cubicle door, unable to put any weight on it.

"Oh, shit, you must have fallen on it when you were– shit," Rachel held her more tightly, "What are we going to do?"

"When you're uncertain," Janet whispered, "You must ask yourself: what would Rachel Bailers do?"

"Bailey. It's Bailey." Rachel suddenly wanted to cry to.

"It hurts, Rachel. My foot hurts and my head hurts and my heart hurts."

_Shit, shit, shit._ She wanted to call Kevin or Gill or someone, but her pride couldn't stand it; she couldn't let them see what she'd done to Janet. And Janet would kill her if she knew they'd seen her like this too.

"Lean on me, that's it. I'll call another taxi and we'll go back to my flat."

"No men?" Janet asked, half deliriously.

"Come on. Don't worry, I'm going to make it okay."

XxXxX


End file.
